Digital graphic design, video editing, and media editing applications provide designers and artists with tools to create much of the media seen today through various media outlets (television, movies, Internet content, etc.). These tools allow designers the ability to generate, compose, composite, and animate images and videos in a virtual three-dimensional space.
A computer simulating the three-dimensional space is able to produce (i.e., render) an image of the space as seen from a particular point in the space, looking in a particular direction, with a particular field of view. Some applications define a virtual camera at the particular point that is oriented in the particular direction and has properties that define the particular field of view. Such a virtual camera can be moved around the three-dimensional space, re-oriented, and may have various other properties that can be adjusted. The virtual camera is a user-interface tool that collectively represents the set of properties that define the direction, angle of view, and other attributes for rendering a scene from a particular point of view in a particular direction.
Virtual cameras have generally been defined as having a particular focal plane, a distance at which objects will appear in focus when the view from the camera is rendered. However, users may desire the ability to move the apparent focal plane of the virtual camera closer to or further from the camera in the context of a scene laid out in a three-dimensional space within an application. Users may also want to be able to render in focus a range of distances and expand or contract this range within the context of a scene. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for virtual cameras with highly modifiable focal properties. Furthermore, there is a need for user interface tools to enable easy modification of these focal properties.